


Why Everyone is Confused about S3 Characterization, Probably

by overthemoon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Plot Holes, Gen, Series 3, Sherlock Meta, Sherlock spoilers, i word vomited this all in one go about ten minutes before i had to leave for dinner, i'll probably go back and edit it when i come back from dinner, sorry if none of this makes any sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:32:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overthemoon/pseuds/overthemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long rambly thing about emotional plot holes leading to confusion in character motivation</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Everyone is Confused about S3 Characterization, Probably

TIME SKIPS

TOO MUCH TIME SKIPS

Many apologies if you’re on mobile.  T_T  I didn’t mean to go on this long.

Disclaimer:  I’m not trying to make any points about if any particular characterization is right or not, I’m just trying to make the point that if you’re confused, that’s not your fault.  The writers slipped up and kind of took us for granted.

The transition between S1 and S2 is pretty damn fluid.  We end and start again at the exact same pool scene, and inside the show we do get a montage moving us through the emotional transitions as they get used to living together, in order to move us towards the main plot of Scandal.

Series 3 gives us none of that.  We are dumped straight into a sequence of “after two years they are doing this” but we are walked through none of the mourning, none of the initial trauma of being exposed to a criminal underworld, none of the joy if meeting someone for the first time.

We don’t understand how the characters changed and developed because they gave us no proof of how this change occurred, and as a result, we’re left to fill in the gap with our fic.  Of course we’re going to be confused when our individual interpretations of Post-Reichenbach don’t match up with the show.

This gap in understanding is exacerbated by the lack of transitional montage or footage.  Much of S3 focuses on Sherlock’s internal Mind Palace dialogue, leaving much of the other characters without any narrative room to explain how they are feeling.  (90 min are 90 min, have to cut something somewhere.)

The missing John scenes, especially, make this worse.  Since the season focuses on Sherlock POV, we aren’t presented any of John’s emotional turmoil in a consistent manner, merely only when it relates to how Sherlock feels about John.  However, this contradicts what people are used to in S1 & S2, when the story is mostly told from John’s perspective and without his emotional perspective to hold the narrative arcs together, things fall apart.

Of course people are confused as to why John would take Sherlock back during the train sequence.  The writers don’t show us how John has been mourning his best friend, what kind of substantial grief he must have gone through.  They haven’t shown us how John dealt with coming to terms that Sherlock is back, what kind of internal debate he might have gone through.  We do know that John is upset and he suffered, but to what extent exactly, we don’t know.  When forced to come up with our own interpretations of his depths of grief, it’s no wonder that people think John took Sherlock back too quickly or not quickly enough.  Just punching the bastard (for laughs almost) or that clinic scene doesn’t explain what John’s been through, how hurt he’s been by Sherlock’s deception.

Same thing with how John and Mary’s relationship aka Why Did John Take Her Back.  Most of us are willing to take their comfortable domesticity at face value (mostly heteronomativity and a desire to not hate Mary) but we don’t know how exactly she’s turned John’s life around.  They get along, they’re both invested in taking care of Sherlock, but we don’t understand how deep their emotional bond goes because we didn’t get to see it develop.  When John says, “She wasn’t supposed to be like that” we don’t know how deeply relieved he was to find someone who fit who he wishes he wanted.  We don’t understand how much John has emotionally invested into the person he thinks is Mary Morstan.  We know it’s a lot, that’s rather obvious, but how much?  We do not know.

We are not given a montage explaining how Sherlock, Mary, and John come to terms with being around each other before John’s wedding.  We are not given a montage explaining the several months in which John must come to a decision if he wishes to stay with Mary or not.  We are not given that damn hospital sequence in which John learns the first word Sherlock says is, “Mary.”  When a story has those big emotional gaps, character’s motivations become unclear and murky, and not in a fun way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all the meta that’s trying to make sense of it all.  Sherlock fandom writers are amazing.  I’m just trying to point out that if the writers had done their damn job, we wouldn’t be stuck scrambling for so many explanations in the first place.  Much of the season focused on extrapolating backstories instead of trying to make sense of the present.

TL;DR:  The writers tried to make Sherlock the emotional lynchpin and it doesn’t work because Sherlock doesn’t do feelings the way most people understand them, resulting in the audience feeling removed from the story.

Extra disclaimer:  Yes, Sherlock does have feelings, but trying to make him an emotional lynchpin sidelines John who has always served as the emotional arc before, and I don’t think that’s a good decision narrative-wise.  They’re the head and the heart for a reason.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find this post on tumblr [here](http://overthemoonwriting.tumblr.com/post/73896690708/why-everyone-is-confused-about-s3-characterization) under a readmore.  
> This is my first time writing meta, hopefully it all makes sense! ^_^


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